Do More than Just Decide to Run a Marathon

Deciding to run a marathon is a lot like taking car rental reservations

It’s not enough to decide that you want to run a marathon. That’s the easy part. Anyone can decide to run a marathon. Lots of people do.

Remember what Seinfeld said about rental car reservations?

“See, you know how to take the reservation, you just don’t know how to *hold* the reservation and that’s really the most important part of the reservation, the holding. Anybody can just take them.”

The real challenge every runner faces is to *hold* the reservation – to follow through and put in the 18 weeks (or more) of training. That’s what really makes it possible to run 42.2km and become a marathoner.

Training is hard work

You’re looking at a four or five day per week job that gets in the way of the rest of your life. It’s all-encompassing. Marathon training is a lifestyle. You can’t do it without full commitment.

Start skipping runs, or even just cutting runs short, especially in the first few weeks, and you’ll very quickly find yourself in deep trouble.

The runs start getting longer, and the training gets pretty intense towards the end of the second month. If you aren’t committed, then your body won’t be ready for the physical challenge. When that happens, the aches and pains and injury will add to the test of your commitment.

Marathoning is very rewarding

It’s not easy. It’s not just taking reservations. You need to hold the reservation too. You need to do the training.

But that’s why running a marathon is so rewarding. That day, when you finish the race, you’ll think back to all the sacrifices that you made to get the training done. And you’ll realize that it was all worth it.

Commit to the training now. Do *all* the runs. Make it happen. Otherwise in 18 weeks you’ll be standing on the sidelines thinking about why you aren’t out on course running the marathon you decided you wanted to run.